Fortunately with the help of the Poznan Marriage Project and microfilms from the Church of Latter Day Saints, I’ve finally been able to locate our Borowiak family in Poland. My husband’s great grandfather, Frank Borowiak (1858-1925) immigrated from there sometime between 1879 and 1884. But we never really knew where exactly in Poland he was from. Based on some earlier research, we found his family initially living in Lemont, Ill., then moving to Minnesota between 1893 and 1896. I think we even found the grave of his mother, Michalina Polcyn Borowiak although at the time, in 2004, we were not…
Author: familyhistorian
The Illinois Bell Girls
In a previous post, I mentioned I discovered my mother had never graduated high school. She quit right after turning 16 and started working at Illinois Bell as a telephone operator. I am thinking she chose Illinois Bell because her Aunt Sophie worked there. (Unfortunately I was never really told what my Aunt did there other than serve as a union steward.) Anyway, in 1952, when my mom was 20 years old, she won the Illinois Bell Miss Voice contest for our area. It must have been a big deal for her because we heard stories about her experience many…
The US 1940 Census and My Elusive Daltons
Edit (4/25/2020): At the time of the original writing of this post, I had believed this to be one of my paternal ancestral lines based on research I had done. Since then, DNA testing has proven otherwise. However, I am leaving the post live for those who are researching this line. Original Post: The release of the US 1940 census is almost upon us – only 30 more days. And when that day finally arrives, and the records are thrown open, who will be the first person you seek? For me, it will be Joseph Dalton, one of the more…
Family Secrets
Over the last week I’ve been fortunate to have received some correspondence shedding more light on a few unanswered questions in my adoptive family’s maternal tree. This is the second time that a family member has shared what had been a family “secret” or unknown fact with me on my mother’s side of the tree. My mother would have been scandalized, or would she? For I discovered shortly after she died, my mother held her own secret. My mother was English on her father’s side and Polish on her mother’s. She was fiercely close to her father’s sister, Aunt Agnes,…
Found! Naturalization Record for Jozefa Lisowska
The big win for me this weekend was finding the naturalization record (and attached photo) for my great-grandmother, Jozefa Lisowska. Because I was adopted and this is my birth family, I don’t have many photos from either my birth father or birth mother’s side. Fortunately I was able to spend time with my birth family, including Jozefa’s daughter and my grandmother, Stella. But while they were generous with stories and photos, I don’t think they had any of Jozefa. But now I have the one on her naturalization record! So not only was I able to obtain all the standard…
Photo of US Soldiers During Korean War
I’m slowly going through the photos and other memorabilia that have been handed down to me from my relatives. Because some of the items could be of interest to others, I thought I would start posting a few to the blog. Today, I am posting a photo of the company my dad was in during the Korean War. I have tried to list the names that were on the back so they could be picked up by a search engine if their family is looking for them online. But not all were legible so I did the best I could.…